Reliance to spend $400 million a year to exploit gas in KG Basin

29 September 2003

Further, an annual outlay of $100 million is planned for offshore exploration in coastal Gujarat and Maharashtra, senior company officials said at a conference organised by ICICI Securities in the US.

On Reliance's upstream oil and gas business, it said currently only a tenth of the KG Basin has been explored and the gas find (11tcf) is already equal to India's current gas availability.

Reliance's refinery is currently operating at over 115-per cent utilisation and expansion to 33mmtpa (from 31mmtpa) is expected to be completed by end-FY04. In the first phase, 1,500 retail gas stations are expected to be set up over next 12 months.

The company is also a contender for acquiring a strategic stake in HPCL. The de-bottlenecking plans, in the petrochemicals business, are expected to be completed at a cost of $750 million over three years, the officials said.

Reliance is accelerating its growth to meet operating and financial targets within planned timelines in all its business — upstream oil and gas, refining and marketing, petrochemicals and telecom.